Prosecutors
from Cook County, Chicago are looking for additional cases of
corruption surrounding a former Chicago police officer, the Chicago Tribune reported on Monday.

Prosecutors alleged that there may have been more compromised
convictions involving Sgt. Ronald Watts and his subordinates
stretching back almost 10 years - far more than the four drug
convictions that were previously overturned.

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The court has so far tossed out cases involving three defendants
and awarded $2 million to two officers who said they were
victimized after initiating their whistleblower lawsuit, in which
they alleged they were "blackballed" for attempting to bring
Watts' alleged corruption to light, the newspaper reported.

Watts, a public housing officer, was known to extort protection
money from drug dealers and framed cases on those who wouldn't
comply, Chicago Tribune reporter Jason Meisner wrote. He was
arrested in 2012 by the FBI and pleaded guilty to stealing money
from an informant. He was eventually sentenced to 22 months in
prison, according to the Tribune.

"We know from law enforcement documents that Watts and his crew
were accused of taking kickbacks on a weekly basis," said
attorney Josh Tepfer of the University of Chicago Law School's
Exoneration Project in an interview with the Tribune.

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"It was clear as day that they were routinely framing individuals
for crimes that they didn't commit. And individuals at the
highest levels of CPD were aware of this misconduct."

Ben Baker, who served almost a decade in prison, was released
last year. Lionel White, who pleaded guilty to a five-year
sentence in order to prevent receiving a potential life sentence,
maintained that he had been framed and had his conviction
dismissed in December after being behind bars for 2 1/2 years.

caption

Chicago's Cook County Jail.

source

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

"There is little question that [those cases] barely scratch the
surface of the wrongful arrests, prosecutions and convictions at
the hands of an individual the Cook County State's Attorney's
Office now acknowledges is a 'dirty police officer,'" a November
filing stated. "The interests of justice necessitate a full
accounting of all the victims that have been harmed by wrongful
conviction through the actions of these rogue Chicago police
officers."

Tepfer believed that the Watts case was the first time that the
state's attorney's office was searching through convictions on
its own personnel.

"We're very pleased that they've decided to go forward," Tepfer
said, according to the Tribune. "It's absolutely the right thing
to do."

"Whether they spent a year behind bars or five years, it was time
taken out of society, time where they weren't able to work, where
they lost time with their family or weren't able to live their
life because they were framed," he said.

"Every one of those individuals has the right to have their
convictions overturned and the opportunity to get compensation
from the state."